coe150_west.mp3 Speaker1: [00:00:23] Welcome back, everyone, to the Cultures of Energy podcast. It is November 1st, 2018, the day after Halloween. Speaker2: [00:00:30] The Day of reckoning. A day of Speaker1: [00:00:32] Reckoning. A few days before the midterm vote in the United States. Another kind of reckoning. And well, we have on the podcast today a marvelous conversation. Speaker3: [00:00:43] Let's do the magnificent, marvelous and magnificent. Speaker1: [00:00:46] Maybe this time we can talk about who's on the podcast before we blather on for a few minutes and that we people know they have something to look forward to. Speaker3: [00:00:53] The marvelous and magnificent maven of Anthropology Dr. Paige Speaker2: [00:00:58] West, Dr. Paige West is back. Speaker1: [00:01:00] She is back and we are processing our political moment. We are talking about climate issues and how regular folks like the types of people who listen to this podcast. Environmentally minded scholars might be able to do more and we actually have. I don't want to spoil it, but we have a kind of interesting proposal that, in a sense, is something that everyone listening to this podcast could potentially participate. Speaker3: [00:01:24] Are you going to spoil it? Are you going to Speaker2: [00:01:26] Say that I'll save it? Ok? I think we save it. But listen, listen Speaker3: [00:01:29] Through to towards the end is when that came up, Speaker2: [00:01:32] I think, yeah, yeah, it was a good idea there something we could Speaker1: [00:01:35] Actually get behind if we, if we wanted Speaker2: [00:01:37] To could even Speaker3: [00:01:38] Get organized. Speaker2: [00:01:38] Yeah. Speaker1: [00:01:39] I want to tell you the funniest thing I saw on Facebook this morning was friend colleague Hugh Gustafson gave his kids the task of carving pumpkins with the scariest thing they could imagine. He set them the task of carving pumpkins with the scariest images on there that they could imagine. Speaker3: [00:01:55] Oh, not so not carving with a scary tool, but carving a scary carving. Speaker2: [00:01:59] A scary figure. Got it! Ok, I Speaker3: [00:02:01] Thought he was encouraging and he is dangerous. Speaker1: [00:02:03] So one of them did the no wi fi logo. Speaker2: [00:02:07] Oh oh yeah. Speaker1: [00:02:08] And the and the other one did. I'll show it to you. Speaker2: [00:02:12] And it says, how old is his kid? I don't know. Speaker3: [00:02:15] Must be about 18. Speaker2: [00:02:16] So student loans, the pumpkins are student loans. That's right. That's scary. I think that's that's pretty brilliant. Speaker3: [00:02:22] I like the no wife. I too. Speaker2: [00:02:23] That's go Hugh Speaker1: [00:02:24] Gustafson, kids. Well done. Our pumpkins, they rotted in like a matter of minutes. Speaker2: [00:02:29] Always do. We carved them and we Speaker1: [00:02:32] Baked our pumpkin seeds and then the pumpkins like they rotted within like a day. I've never seen that before. Speaker2: [00:02:36] It was so they Speaker3: [00:02:37] Always really, really quickly here because they set out and the heat of Houston kind of out in a parking lot, basically for several weeks before Halloween. And so even though they're not damaged, like there's still a Speaker2: [00:02:50] Hole, Speaker1: [00:02:51] They look intact, Speaker2: [00:02:52] They Speaker3: [00:02:53] Are intact. I think until we get them and then you cut into them and then they just immediately go to rot. Where to got it went overnight and your pumpkin in particular, OK? This is a little bit gross out, people, but it was so full of like gray furry mold that it was bursting through the holes that you would cut into the face like it was literally leaking hair mold out the mouth and the eyes. Speaker2: [00:03:15] It was scary. Speaker3: [00:03:16] You, yes, you could not put your hand in it without rubbing up against the gossamer feel of this fine mold. Speaker2: [00:03:23] That's right, it was pretty creepy. And it was like, No, Speaker3: [00:03:27] But you would like I'm saying it was so full of that mold that if you put your hand in there, it would have coated your hands, right? That's how that's. And this was a big pumpkin. Speaker2: [00:03:36] Yeah, it was spooky. Speaker3: [00:03:37] Full size pumpkin. And it had also it was starting to rot onto the floor like its bottom was flat because that had lost all integrity. Speaker2: [00:03:46] And literally, Speaker1: [00:03:47] This was within 48 hours. Speaker2: [00:03:49] It really was perfectly like normal pumpkin getting Speaker1: [00:03:51] Carved to being this Speaker2: [00:03:54] Rotting horse. Speaker3: [00:03:55] I mean, it was pretty cool, but I was like, what? What happened to the pumpkins? Now, mine wasn't quite as bad. Mine was a different breed, but it was. Bridges got pretty rotted, too. That's how it always happens. And this was inside the house. Mind you, this is in an air conditioned house. Speaker1: [00:04:08] And to make things still scarier in Houston last afternoon and evening we had tornado warnings Speaker2: [00:04:13] And heavy rain and whipping winds were pretty serious. Sideways diagonal. It was Speaker3: [00:04:19] Intense. Yeah, thunder, loud thunder and big lightning. So it was pretty spooky. At first I was bummed because I was like, Oh no, the child is going to be disappointed, who's been looking forward to Halloween and it's going to be completely rained out and horrible. Speaker2: [00:04:33] Yeah. Speaker3: [00:04:33] But then actually, it's like, Whoa, this is kind of great because it's a very spooky night. As long as we don't get sucked up by a tornado, which I wasn't really worried about, but then lo and behold, the goddess of Halloween spirit came out and cleared the skies for about an hour and a half, just enough for the kiddies to get out and go collect Speaker2: [00:04:51] Their grub because it isn't Halloween. Speaker1: [00:04:53] Halloween was a pagan, so to speak, Speaker2: [00:04:55] Ritual right of Speaker1: [00:04:57] Death and rebirth. I think, right? Speaker2: [00:04:59] I can't remember what the historical roots of Hallows Eve, but I don't think that was Samhain after different things about. Speaker3: [00:05:06] Yeah, I used to know that. I used to know that back when I was in my early 20s, and that was important to me to Speaker2: [00:05:11] Know the history. Speaker1: [00:05:12] What did you go for as Halloween yesterday? So many how? Speaker2: [00:05:15] Oh, well, Speaker3: [00:05:16] So I I don't know. I kind of tool to told it back a bit because of the rain. And carry an umbrella and having to carry a bunch of crap. But my costume is queen of Speaker2: [00:05:26] Bats, queen of bats, and Speaker3: [00:05:28] It's not baseball bats. That's the Murcielago, the the blind, the flying blind mouse Speaker1: [00:05:35] And shadow was one of Speaker2: [00:05:36] Your little bat Speaker3: [00:05:36] Minions, maybe my bat minion. But because of the range, she didn't want to go out. And she also didn't like her bat costume, which is really cute on her. But she doesn't like having this funny, heavy thing. Waggling around her neck and back so she was not into the costume. And yeah, but otherwise, OK. I think next year I'm going to save that costume and we're just going to hit replay on that. Speaker1: [00:05:58] Don't let a good idea go to waste. I mean, you know, even if it didn't work out this year, you can do it next year. Speaker3: [00:06:03] Plus, you didn't get to go out in your scary cause. Speaker1: [00:06:05] I have the same costume I wear every year, but that's because it's so excellent and frightening. But this year it felt like, yeah, with all the rain and the injured foot and everything, it just wasn't the best year to do it. Speaker2: [00:06:15] So still milking that story? Yeah, the full story has been I'm getting another six weeks out of this. Speaker3: [00:06:21] I'm going to have to find I'm going to have to injure myself somehow. Speaker2: [00:06:24] Yeah, you should Speaker3: [00:06:24] Until shadow come over here and knock on my leg or Speaker2: [00:06:27] Something I need. Speaker3: [00:06:30] I need a sob story to Speaker2: [00:06:33] Get a sob story as a legitimate injury. He is a legitimate injury and hobbling. Speaker3: [00:06:38] You're no, you're limping a little bit. Speaker2: [00:06:41] Oh, and something else? Speaker1: [00:06:42] Well, while we're on the topic of Halloween, for folks who might be interested, you could surf over to the cultures machine. Speaker2: [00:06:49] Oh yeah, the cultural anthropology website column Speaker1: [00:06:51] Dot org, where we released the first installment of what we're calling a bestiary for our time of monsters, and it's a number of really scary, interesting short pieces in which people took the prompt of thinking about the our political moment as a time of monsters to create monsters both real and imagined to write about. And we have some excellent artwork by. Speaker3: [00:07:17] This is just a political moment to think about monsters. I thought it was grander than that. Speaker1: [00:07:21] Well, I use political in the broadest sense. I'm not talking about sheerly people in politics, but rather you could say our social moment. I guess if that was better cultural moment. But yeah, people are doing different or doing different things. And I did a piece on Blob and Simone. You did a piece called How does it pronounce tweedle tweedle tweedle? Speaker2: [00:07:40] I think I Speaker3: [00:07:41] Need to put a little note on there because you know what it is, it's a Scottish Gaelic word. And what does it mean, blob? It means flood. Speaker2: [00:07:48] Oh, I like that. Speaker3: [00:07:49] And why did I pick Scottish Gaelic? Speaker2: [00:07:53] Why? Speaker3: [00:07:53] Because guess who invented the steam engine? James fucking what a Scotsman Speaker2: [00:08:00] Who started the flood. Patty O'Shaughnessy. Speaker1: [00:08:03] Another another well-known Scots Irish. Speaker2: [00:08:07] I don't know. Speaker1: [00:08:09] Folks are inspired by that. I think that they should think about developing a character and and sending it our way because I'd love to do more of them kind of along Speaker2: [00:08:17] The lines of the Anthropocene. Speaker3: [00:08:18] And actually, I'll just put a pitch out. I would love to see some more, some more monsters like some actual characters, some figures, some I think that would be cool to include some more of those because the reflective essays are excellent and they do talk about monstrous times and really cool to get some more actual monsters in there. Speaker2: [00:08:37] Yeah. So there's a plea, a plea for monsters. Speaker3: [00:08:41] Think about it. Consider it. You can come up with a come up with a monster and put it out there. Speaker2: [00:08:47] Yeah. Think of your Speaker1: [00:08:49] When you used to play Dungeons and Dragons as ninety five percent of you did you know you open the monster manual and there were all these creepy is in there? Think about that. Think about what Speaker3: [00:08:57] You can do, whatever you want. You can be as creative as you want. Go crazy. You can form it out of any and it can exist in any time space continuum that you like. Actually, it doesn't need to be in the present. Speaker1: [00:09:08] So, yes, so anything else you would like to cover so many Speaker2: [00:09:11] How I don't know anything else on your mind. I don't Speaker3: [00:09:14] Think so. I just, I don't know. I'm just still recovering from Halloween. Speaker2: [00:09:18] Do you feel Speaker1: [00:09:18] Like you were gypped out of a proper Halloween because of the rainstorm and because of the worries about the political situation in Brazil and the United States and pretty much everyone in the world Speaker3: [00:09:29] Except Iceland? Speaker2: [00:09:30] Pretty much. Speaker1: [00:09:31] Yeah, Iceland's looking pretty good. Canada's not so Speaker2: [00:09:33] Bad. Canada is OK, Speaker3: [00:09:34] I guess, too. Yeah, no, I don't know. I mean, I think, you know, Halloween's are different when you're a kid and when you're a grown up and when you're a kid with a grown up or grown up with a kid. Right. So the fun thing to do on Halloween when you have a child or children is kind of take them out for Halloween and stuff. Speaker1: [00:09:51] Oh, I want to ask you a question about it. Speaker3: [00:09:53] Then at some point you want to go back to the grown up Halloween version that you lived in, like your twenties when you would go to cool Halloween parties and dress up and go have drinks with grown ups. Speaker1: [00:10:01] Yeah, we don't do enough of that. Speaker2: [00:10:02] I think part of that is Houston, because it doesn't even exist. Speaker1: [00:10:04] I think in Houston, it's really probably hard to find. Speaker3: [00:10:07] It's going to throw that party, if not us, Speaker1: [00:10:09] Are people we know in the theater. Speaker2: [00:10:12] They would do it because they did. They did a real toga party and they just actually showed up for that and they weren't togo's. Speaker1: [00:10:17] So there is that I wanted to ask you about this whole case. The organization ritual that you guys do when we got back yesterday, and I wonder how many people do this sit down and just like lay out all the candies so you can really, you know, get a God's eye view on it? Is that is that what the idea was? Speaker3: [00:10:32] I don't know. We just started doing it a few years ago, and I think a lot of kids, when they come home with their bag, dump it out on their bed or on the floor or on a table or something to be able to see it. The other thing is is that if you're a proper parent, you're supposed to go through the candy and check for needle marks or torn places where cyanide pills might have been inserted into the Snickers. Speaker2: [00:10:55] Did you do that? Speaker3: [00:10:56] Yeah, that's why you're supposed to inspect every piece of candy I see officially. And so that's why the kid pour him out and the grown ups are supposed to go through it. And then I just thought it was kind of fun to put them into patterns, so we put them into patterns and categories. Speaker1: [00:11:09] It was like you made a mandala Speaker2: [00:11:11] Out of candy, like a candy mandala. Speaker3: [00:11:13] The one thing got a different shape every year. Speaker1: [00:11:15] The one thing I was really surprised by, pleasantly is that somebody had given you some crackerjack. I was like crackerjack. I haven't thought about crackerjack for probably since I was a kid. Speaker2: [00:11:23] I still think Speaker3: [00:11:24] I gave that one the award of the most unique treat of the night. Yeah, but you had what you were most pleasantly surprised about was the fact that she got a lot of little Snickers bars. Speaker2: [00:11:34] Hmm. Speaker1: [00:11:35] Not my favorite candy. Speaker3: [00:11:38] Maybe your second Speaker2: [00:11:39] Favorite. You know, it's a nutritious candy bar. Speaker1: [00:11:43] I remember growing up be like, you get a Snickers bar, like Speaker2: [00:11:46] It's almost like you're having peanuts and my Speaker3: [00:11:48] Goggles got nuts in it. That's hilarious. Oh, that's great. It's got milk Speaker2: [00:11:52] Chocolate. I think it's kind of Speaker1: [00:11:53] Like, you know, multigrain nugget. Speaker2: [00:11:55] Yeah, sure. Speaker3: [00:11:57] Organic whole Speaker2: [00:11:58] Grain, nougat grain nugget and Speaker3: [00:12:00] Probably grass-fed milk caramel. Speaker1: [00:12:02] The caramel has got some kind of vitamin enhancements in it. Speaker3: [00:12:06] The funny thing is, is that Brigida, like, I was like, You could have a candy when you were candies in your lunch today, right? Because they're all going to do that. And instead of picking a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or a Snickers or something yummy like that or even her one of her favorites, which is the Milky Way, what does she pick? Not the Cracker Speaker2: [00:12:24] Jacks. Tootsie Roll. Yeah, Tootsie Speaker3: [00:12:26] Roll. But she's really into I'm like, How can you like that candy compared to these other ones? Why would you pick a Tootsie Roll over a Snickers bar? Speaker2: [00:12:34] I will say one thing about one Speaker1: [00:12:36] Thing in favor of the Tootsie Roll is it lasts a long time. You can suck on that thing Speaker2: [00:12:39] For a day if you have to. So, I mean, yes, it's a long lasting durability of durability, and Speaker3: [00:12:45] It's an old candy. I mean, it's like old school, but it tastes like old tastes like one of these candies from the 19th century, doesn't it? Tastes kind of like water Speaker2: [00:12:54] And like, it's like fake cocoa, industrial resin and sugar. Speaker1: [00:12:57] And it just, you know, it lasts forever and ever. But probably your body can't even process it so. No, I think I was thinking of two things either one, she's trying to make it last all day or two. She's wisely going to try to barter that to a kid who is like, who's got such an abundance of amazing candy. And they're just like, Oh, yeah, like, Oh, I'll take one of those. And then suddenly she's got Speaker2: [00:13:18] Herself a Milky Way bar. Speaker1: [00:13:20] And then maybe she barters that Milky Way bar into getting a Reese's down the road. And then suddenly she's converted a Tootsie Roll into it's like a West African proverb. That's story about, you know, Speaker2: [00:13:30] One one one show on Speaker1: [00:13:32] Cowry. Shell eventually becomes a wife. Speaker2: [00:13:35] I thought it was a Speaker1: [00:13:36] Petroleum refinery event, Speaker3: [00:13:38] And now it becomes a wife and a feast and some nice clothes. Yeah, at least in the version that I know. But yeah, maybe that's the purpose of the tutu. I think she just really wanted the Tootsie Roll like that was her choice. Out of the seventy candies in there, that's the one she wanted most. Speaker1: [00:13:53] I mean, I don't want to disclose any of our secrets, but I Speaker2: [00:13:55] Mean, kind of that's how I, you know, acquired You're love acquiring Speaker1: [00:14:01] You is the right way of describing it. But in other words, if we hadn't swapped that Tootsie Roll, I there wouldn't have been a series of dominoes that fell that led to, you know, our marriage. Speaker3: [00:14:10] So you wouldn't have sent over the elephants with the casks of wine. We wouldn't have had that marital feast. Speaker1: [00:14:16] It's always just, you know, figuring out what people want and then trying to trade up and trade up and trade up. And eventually you Speaker2: [00:14:21] Get a wife. Speaker3: [00:14:22] Yeah, well, that's how it's been done for millennia. Speaker2: [00:14:24] Dominic Borja, speaking patriarch, patriarchy. Speaker3: [00:14:28] If it's not broke, don't fix it. Speaker2: [00:14:30] Absolutely. Speaker1: [00:14:31] That basically is the Republican campaign slogan this year. Speaker2: [00:14:35] It's like patriarchy. Speaker3: [00:14:36] We've been bunk at our women over the head for millennia. Speaker2: [00:14:39] Let's keep doing it. Oh, whoa. All right. That's it. That's all I can say about that. Speaker3: [00:14:44] Don't blow up people's ears now. Speaker1: [00:14:45] You're only worried about the sound design when I'm shouting vote or singing. Speaker3: [00:14:48] No, it's any kind of shouting because Speaker2: [00:14:51] You got to vote this coming week. That's I don't know if you can keep that. But it might have to get cut out. I'm sorry. I'm not saying it was my Speaker1: [00:15:02] Best song, but I mean, it is a song and you know, I'm having to hold up the musical theater end of this podcast Speaker2: [00:15:09] All by myself. No one else has ever joined. No one. No one has ever Speaker3: [00:15:13] Requested musical theater on this Speaker2: [00:15:15] Podcast. Oh, and I do want to do a shout out page. Speaker1: [00:15:18] Mention the Sinodinos does kids as a really cool indigenous hip hop act, and you can listen to them on SoundCloud by putting the link in the program notes. They are very cool. I would definitely recommend going listening to them. It's good music. Speaker2: [00:15:32] Yeah, so cool with that. Speaker3: [00:15:33] So thank you for that suggestion too. That's good. I'll get that out there also. Speaker2: [00:15:37] All right, sir. In the meantime, let Speaker3: [00:15:39] Us say go page. Speaker1: [00:16:00] Hey, welcome back, everyone, to the Cultures of Energy podcast we have with us in the studio, our second studio guest. And I want to point out that our first studio guest was Lacey Johnson. Our second studio guest right here with us now is Paige West. This is becoming known as a space for strong feminist voices, which is awesome. Speaker3: [00:16:18] That's right. You're in the feminist seat right now, Paige, the strong feminist Speaker2: [00:16:22] Voice seat with and you and your Typekit power. Speaker3: [00:16:26] Totally right, and you're occupying it very well. Thank you. Listeners believe it's true. Speaker1: [00:16:31] I'm hoping in my future life to have a strong feminist. Speaker2: [00:16:33] Maybe if you're lucky, Speaker3: [00:16:35] If you're not, if you're nice to us. Speaker1: [00:16:37] So, Paige, we had a chance two years ago, shortly after a disastrous event to sit down together in Minneapolis. I believe it was together with you and Jessie Speaker2: [00:16:48] Around issue, around issue. Speaker1: [00:16:50] You see, we've upgraded Speaker2: [00:16:51] A little bit, so fancy, Speaker3: [00:16:55] So fancy now. Speaker1: [00:16:58] But we talked a lot in that conversation and I think everyone was probably that kind of high. You get after something traumatic happens where you're just like racing and you kind of in a weird way, feel invincible, probably because of adrenaline. We were talking a lot about politics and what could what could happen in the future. It should happen. You know what our possibilities were. So I thought maybe we could revisit that as a way to get started. And I was curious to ask both of you to talk a little bit about the past two years and the sort of political actions maybe that you've engaged with, or maybe that you just know about that you felt were particularly effective, that you were particularly happy happened. Does that make sense? Speaker2: [00:17:38] Yeah, I think so. Speaker4: [00:17:39] It does make sense. I'm going to have to think about it for a minute because I'm feeling really depressed. I mean, I think like a lot of people, I'm feeling really depressed and kind of broken right now, especially after the Supreme Court mess. And I feel like there has been so much organizing over the past two years, and people have worked themselves to death doing a lot of important political work. And I think that there have been there have been, you know, gains made in some ways. But it seems like every game that's made with a protest are with, you know, a letter writing campaign or with direct action. Then the next day something awful happens or something awful happens. And then as we're all scrambling to deal with that politically and socially and morally, you know, they they legislate something kind of behind the back of that that we don't know about, right? There's all of this stuff that they're doing on top of everything else. Speaker1: [00:18:35] All right. You know, I think one of the things I mean, I feel there's too, I'm sure everyone does just worn down after two years of that right of being trying to be engaged, trying to be aware and then feeling like you're up against this. But on the other hand, we have, you know, the possibility of change pretty soon if the election breaks the right way. And not all the signs are good, but they're not terrible either. So I mean, I don't know, there's some hope there. I think if we want to just go the standard mainstream legislative route, Speaker3: [00:19:05] Right, the usual electoral politics, Speaker1: [00:19:07] Which we know are incapable of addressing all Speaker3: [00:19:09] These issues. I mean, there was a pretty depressing story. You know, I listen to that podcast, The New York Times one, the daily. It's called, and there's a pretty depressing story on that a couple of days ago about the Senate and the way it can go and just the way it's structured is such that it promotes the inclusion of rural, less populated states and their representation. I mean, this is the way it's structured, right? But given the polarization in voting patterns in these places versus these more populous states, the blue states with big cities that it is likely they're sort of prediction was it's likely that it'll be impossible to ever sort of get Democratic control over the Senate for a long time coming. Well, they see this as like decades and the Senate, as we just saw. I mean, pretty obvious most explicitly with Brett Kavanaugh is that they have a lot of decision making power, an incredible amount. So if the house goes, the house flips back towards the Democrats, it would be fantastic. But it sounds like the Senate is just kind of Speaker2: [00:20:09] Fucked for a while time around, especially. Speaker4: [00:20:13] Well, I mean, one of the things that I think I am hopeful about is the way that frustration with national electoral politics has galvanized people at the local level. Right. And so in New York City, in New York state, you see young people who have not been involved in politics before running for office. You see them running for both sort of high profile offices, but also running to be on community boards and getting involved at that level. And I feel like one of the benefits of the frustration is a kind of return to local politics. And there are some problems there, right, because there are definitely things that we need to address at the national level. I mean, the thing that I think the three of us think about kind of in concert a lot is climate change and that is going to have to be dealt with at the national level. But there are so many small scale problems and large scale problems that we can deal with at the state level, and I think that might change because of this. I mean, I'm feeling hopeful about that. I think and I'm feeling hopeful about my students becoming interested in local level politics for the first time. Speaker3: [00:21:15] So your students are actually getting involved somehow? Speaker4: [00:21:18] They are. They're attempting to get involved. You know, a lot of our students are not from New York City. And so it is hard for them to get involved in New York City politics, which also, I should say, are a kind of morass. But yeah, they want to learn about local politics. I mean, so I teach a class on the Anthropocene. And two weeks ago, we had this amazing guy named Paul Thomas, who I've known forever through sports, who is a lobbyist. Come and explain to us how lobbying happens at the city and state level so that the students could then begin to think through when they go home. You know, these are these are kids that are going to graduate this year or next year when they go home and they want to get involved in politics. What are the mechanisms by which they can influence? And it was a really positive experience, in part because they learned what they could do. But also it was a sobering reminder of how much lobbying is is influential in local and state politics, in addition to national Speaker1: [00:22:13] Politics in ways that are usually invisible. That's amazing. You brought a lobbyist, and that's brilliant. Speaker2: [00:22:17] Yeah, yeah. Speaker3: [00:22:18] Yeah, that's a really good idea. Speaker4: [00:22:19] And he was great. I mean, one of the things he talked about that was surprising to me, I guess, was the amount of the amount of personal networks that actually that actually structure so much of what gets done in the city and in the state. So it was enlightening for me to. Speaker3: [00:22:36] Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know. For the first time, we went out and knocked on doors like, I've never done that kind of, you know, sort of basic milquetoast political activism before. Like I've been to the anarchist rallies. And, you know, the smoke ends like I've done a lot of sort of radical political stuff, but never done done that. Speaker1: [00:22:58] We went to the marches, too. I mean, well, we Speaker3: [00:23:00] Went to the marches, too. But I'm saying that there's something like, I guess there's something about the sort of national political crisis, if you will. I hate to be like, Yeah, sorry, Janet Reitman, I don't want to be a two crisis oriented about it. But given that I think it is compelling people to sort of get involved with the kind of more mundane politics that are electoral politics, right? Young people, older people, yeah, people who don't see themselves doing that. So that's I guess I think that's a positive thing. But I think, yeah, people are tired too. Like it feels like it's been a really long two years. Speaker4: [00:23:35] It does feel like that. I mean, one of the one of the things. So we did that too. We went to marches. Yeah, you know, we had knocked on doors during the second Obama election down in Pennsylvania. And I won't do that again, actually, because I normally I'm not afraid of people. And the reactions we got when we knocked on doors in sort of suburban Pennsylvania were not great. Whoa. A little bit terrified of people Speaker3: [00:23:59] Like people were nasty. Speaker4: [00:24:00] Yeah, terrible and nasty and said terrible things. I mean, you know, racially tinged things that I grew up in Georgia, so I've heard it all. But to have it yelled at me when I'm knocking on someone's door, I was a little bit like, Wow, yeah. But I think one of the things that I have not done that I'm disappointed in myself for not doing is focusing more on climate change and really saying, OK, what? What do I do at the local level to actually influence my, my congresspeople and my senators? So I tweet to Gillibrand and Schumer all the time, but I don't really think that does anything except make me a little less angry. And so I think that's kind of my resolution. My post post-election resolution is to really find a group in the city that is focusing on climate change and really get involved in them. Speaker3: [00:24:47] That's a good idea. Yeah, I'm sure we could afford to do that here in Houston, too. Speaker2: [00:24:51] Yeah, I mean, Speaker1: [00:24:51] We have kind of joined this nascent Houston climate movement that really came together out of the aftermath of Harvey. And so the event of Harvey for us down here has made. I mean, I've been doing this research project with flood victims, right? And that has not been the typical kind of. In fact, I don't want to make it sound as though it's at all political organization work, which it isn't. But it's a chance to hear and connect with people about these issues and to talk through them and to try to understand what some of the impasses are. And what's interesting is that people really are afraid to talk about it because they're kind of afraid. They feel ashamed to talk about climate because of how much it's been politicized, I think in the public sphere. And that's one of the things that really was surprising, because if you look at our survey numbers where people are doing it anonymous, like it's like seventy five percent of people believe climate change has a role in this. And that's encouraging, right? Especially in a city and it's a blue city, but there's a lot of red in it, too. So you're getting we're not getting only, I think, Democrats and that 75 percent right. But the other side of it is that if I were to go by, the actual kind of anthropol.. Geological interviews, I would have guessed it's much lower because of how reticent people are. Speaker2: [00:26:03] So but you, Speaker3: [00:26:04] You you describe it as a shame. Why do you think there's shame? Speaker1: [00:26:07] Well, maybe it's reticence. Maybe it's not shame, but I feel as though people feel as though it's like unseemly to talk about it like it would be as though, Oh, I don't want to ask you about your religion, like there's a Speaker2: [00:26:19] Private right Speaker1: [00:26:20] And you have to keep it private at a time when we need to make it public. And so that's what's a little bit befuddling. Speaker3: [00:26:26] You know what? I think the other issue may be, and I'm just conjecturing here, is that people are very anxious to talk about climate change because they don't feel like they've rehearsed the scientific data enough and that they don't understand it well enough to kind of take a position. And so they're afraid to speak about it because they don't feel like they have an authoritative position on it, right? Whereas like, you know, is Christine Blasey Ford lying or not? Or did that experience like everyone's got an authoritative position on that? Like they have their experiences, they have their opinions, they feel like they have a they have a stake in that and they can make a claim. Right. But I think climate change is more challenging for people because of the science around it. And so someone we are talking to on the pod or I think or maybe I read this someplace, it's like to just take the science out of it like it's a given. We need to talk about it in political terms. And don't worry about having to like if you're at a cocktail party talking to someone. Don't worry about having to perform all the stats and what's going to happen at one point five versus two point zero and what are carbon taxes like? Don't worry about that because it's a political issue. And this guy, this economist from Yale, Nordhaus, who just got the Nobel Prize in economics, who's done all this work on the carbon tax has explicitly said, like this is not it's not a financial issue. There's no like there's no economic reason not to control emissions like right now, like yesterday. And there's no in fact scientific reason that we are at some kind of impasse. It's purely political. Mm hmm. So, you know, take it from the Nobel laureate. Like, we knew this. But I think I think some people, I think people like your average folks still kind of struggle with this, the science aspect of it. Speaker1: [00:28:11] I'm curious and ask you, I mean, maybe just this one follow up question for you, page. You know, you had Hurricane Sandy, which I feel like is akin to Harvey in terms of its devastating impact on a major city. But there hasn't been another sandy since Sandy. So what's your sense of the how mobilized and attentive people are to climate issues? I feel like there was a big surge of interest after Sandy the way there has been after Harvey. But are you finding that that's sustaining that there's there's there's an energy to work with there? Or is it something where the storm has receded enough that people aren't? Really. Speaker4: [00:28:44] I think the storm has receded enough. It's not present in people's daily lives anymore. And there's been a ton of rebuilding and there was a ton of reinvestment and building in places where people should not be building. You know, the city made a lot of noise about coming up with smart climate policies. And I do think the mayor of New York City thinks about climate change, but he thinks about it in the context of New York state, which is a state that has only, you know, our current governor has only talked about it in terms of potential economic opportunities from new technologies. Right. I mean, there's that kind of techno science fix to everything. I mean, which you too obviously know a lot more about than me. I mean, I think one of the things kind of going back to the question about the politicization of it is that I think it has become something like religion, you know, and especially in the south, there's this idea that you don't talk about religion or politics at the dinner table, right? Right. Because people are going to get upset and then you're going to fight with your great uncle and it's going to be unpleasant for everybody. And it makes me I'm horrified that people think of climate change that way, right? Right. Because that does a kind of silencing and erasure of being able to share stories about it because I've been thinking a lot lately about how to help people get past the paralysis that they feel from not understanding the science, as you say, but also from the constant, unyielding, devastating news. You know, every single time, and I'm going to talk about this tomorrow, every single time you look at the newspaper or every single time you look at Facebook or Twitter, there's another story that is the most horrifying thing you have ever read. Speaker4: [00:30:20] And there's a thing about aggregation there, right? I mean, so I just read this thing about about elk in Yellowstone. And did you guys see this? It's amazing. So it's in the Atlantic, and there's this person who's been looking at elk and migration and the reintroduction of elk and Yellowstone. And it turns out that these elk that are reintroduced don't migrate the way that they need to migrate, and it's because those migration patterns are learned over time. Right. So there are cultural migration patterns to use an anthropological turn, right? And with climate change, you have the elk that have been extirpated. In part because of loss of habitat, then all the hunting and all of that, but then you have these elk that are being reintroduced and they don't know the migration patterns, and so they don't know when it's a little bit warmer that you go up this ridge or when it's a little bit rainier, you go down this sort of watershed. And so that aggregation is overwhelming to people because when you think about all the elk being gone, what do you do? You know, I get drunk as what I do, right? But if you think about one single elk and you think about a story that someone can share with you about being in Yellowstone and kind of seeing this elk on a ridge, there's something about storytelling that is powerful and gets lost with the politicization and the aggregation, if that makes sense at all. Speaker2: [00:31:44] Mm hmm. Speaker3: [00:31:45] Yeah, I think it's I think you're making a really, really important point. And that is it's important not to forget about the kind of heartbreak of reading this stuff and these hearing these stories and learning about them every day, as you say in various dimension. But there's plenty out there on climate that's depressing enough, like, you know, for after Trump was elected and a period since like, I refuse to kind of look at the cover of the New York Times, like I can't really look at my home page, you know, because it just it contaminates your space. And yet you kind of have to know what's going on. But this last IPCC report just reading about that like it. It's upsetting, like it makes me kind of tear up and get upset. Yeah. And that's like, what do you do with that? Like, what do you do with that upset ness, especially when I think about our kid, right? Like, yeah, 20 40 is like tomorrow that is 20, 40 is not. That's twenty one years from now. Twenty two years from now. Like and the kind of stuff that this report says is going to be going down by that time is devastating. Speaker4: [00:32:51] Well, so here's a question for all of us, right? I mean, what? What do we what do we do as scholars who think about this and work on this and something has to be done right now? I mean, because I read most of that, I had not read the report until the flight today and I read it. And all I could think is I don't need to be doing anything else. I don't need to be writing books. I don't need to be applying for grants to go, do new stuff. I need to be working on this. And so there's that weird balance of knowing that this is what we need to do, kind of not knowing exactly how to do it or what scale to do it. And then as anthropologist kind of trying to figure out what we can bring to it that nobody else can bring to it. What's our skill set? I mean, so one thing we have is a kind of research. You're doing the kind of research you're doing. Speaker1: [00:33:40] Yeah. And there's going to be some opportunities for that. Maybe increasingly opportunities for research on climate impacts because they're happening everywhere and they're getting more significant. So but I have the same feeling that you do that in a way we have to throw out the playbook for what it means, and especially for those of us who are tenured and have the freedom, frankly, to do things that are unusual, that aren't just based on our own survival, right? If we get to the point where we are going to be OK professionally, we know that that is like increasingly harder to get to that position. But I think if you're in that position, we really need to be thinking about trying to take our whatever small amount of elite ness and kind of loudspeaker we get and really working on this issue. But I think we also have to work on it creatively because I think part of it is that people are tuning out some of the usual loudspeakers. And so I'm thinking, you know, we need to. I mean, not everyone wants to can do it. But I think another thing we have is the storytelling, and I think we need to to think about how we can work with artists and other people who can help to find different ways of of getting this messaging out there in a way that's not completely dispiriting because I think another part of it is people tune out because they just can't deal with that much grief in their life. And if we have to find a way to somehow re-inject some other, like a wider emotional spectrum that lets people feel like I can live in this world, even though it's going to be hard. Speaker3: [00:35:02] Yeah, I mean, one of the I think one of the difficulties with anthropology, as we all know from the projects that we've done in the past, is the slow unfolding of the research process and the time it takes to get the books out or the articles out, like through all of the proper channels of peer review and all like, I think about that Mexico research like we started that 10 years ago and the books aren't even out yet. Like, that's too slow like that. I don't think we can afford like like you're saying, like we have to. It has to happen now and all, you know, professional time and maybe even a bunch of personal time needs to be dedicated to this particular struggle. I think, among others, but you know, if we can just focus on this, so then it becomes like, how do you kind of bring the tools of anthropology, but in a kind of more rapid fire sort of way, like how do you get the stories out there faster? Because I think we have to do it faster than we have been right? And some, you know, and I think like the series that you did on. You know, broadly speaking, the hashtag how talk stuff for cultural anthropology website and theorizing the contemporary is one way of doing those kinds of things because it's short form and it happens. We're able to publish it online quickly, relatively quickly Speaker1: [00:36:11] Came out within a couple Speaker2: [00:36:12] Of months. Speaker3: [00:36:12] So that's that's amazingly fast and that there's other kinds of media, too. And like this movie that Dominic and I worked on, like that took it took a year to do. But, you know, in 38 minutes you get the story and that's a lot faster than our books are coming out. You know, it was one year versus 10. So I think we need to think about different media forms to get out there and more rapid fire anthropology. I don't like rapid fire that's so militaristic Speaker4: [00:36:37] It is, but it's but but what you mean? We'll think of a different thing to call it. But I think I think one of the other things that we need to think about is the the scope of who we reach because, you know, with even a, you know, well, selling academic book, yeah, you really reach other academics. And I've been seriously thinking about doing a book that is not for academics. Oh, yeah, that is really that is really for people that, you know, don't have anything to do with universities, don't have anything to do with higher ED and thinking through how we as anthropologists bring our skill set to that and write for those folks and those books come out, they come out quickly and they also have a kind of publicity machine behind them if you do it with a popular press that reaches a lot more people. And so I've been thinking about that and I've been thinking about having conversations with people like you all. I mean, to come back to what do we lucky tenured people do? Well, I think we use what we know as anthropologists to reach as many people as possible, and we don't have to worry about the structures of promotion and tenure anymore. And so that means a very different kind of publication, and Speaker3: [00:37:50] It means that you can write a trade book and you could write a great one and that it would get read by a lot more people than another academic book, which you Speaker2: [00:37:56] Wrote a children's book or a kid's book. Yeah. Speaker1: [00:37:59] Michael Mann was on the spot a few weeks ago. He's talking about he's done a collaborative children's book. I mean, yeah, it's kind of we have to try everything, Speaker3: [00:38:06] And our Icelandic friends are doing that to the kids books and adolescent books about about climate and about environment, but in a more kind of fantastical way. But it's getting at the core of things. And when I was in burning up a bunch of fossil fuels over at Heathrow Airport, however, a month ago or something, I saw Jason W. Moore and Raj Patel's book They're the History of the World and Seven Cheap Things. So it's called, Yeah, it was on sale at the airport. That's pretty cool. Like they had like it was the top. They had like sort of the top 10 picks and it was in, you know, number seven or whatever people are. You know, people are buying that book and reading on the plane like that. I feel like that's where we need to be. Yeah, not just airports, but that's a place where you get regular. Speaker4: [00:38:49] No. And that's where you put people that are reading and thinking, Yes. Not a thought in my head. But then what you said was so interesting when it went away. Let me try to recover it here. Speaker3: [00:38:59] I'm going to teach. I'm teaching that book in the spring, too. That's because he's coming out here for we're having a waste conference and he's going to come out here at the end of January. Speaker4: [00:39:09] Joshua Bell going to come. Do you guys know him now from the Smithsonian? So he's been doing this amazing work on cell phones and cell phone, just all of all of the different aspects of cell phones. But one of the parts and it's a multi person project. One of the things he's been working on is cell phone repair and cell phone disposal in the United States, and it might be interesting to to look into his work. The thing that I was thinking about earlier there was thinking about how anthropologists can respond to this and do things, particularly if there are people who don't have to worry about promotion and tenure and kind of feeding their family anymore. There's an anthropologist from Norway named Edvard Fitting, and Edvard is now basically negotiating for Norway at the level of the U.N.. Wow, and he is, you know, he's worked for many, many years in the Solomon Islands and started thinking about climate change because of working in these low lying Pacific atolls, and also had thought a lot about the processes by which the U.N. does things because he had worked on some World Heritage sites. He works in Maravich Lagoon, which is this amazing place that is a World Heritage Site. So he knew the architecture of the U.N. because of that work. He knew what was happening with climate change because of his work in the Pacific Islands with Fisher people, and he brought those two things together and now is in New York, you know, ten times a year talking to people about how to push the process forward at that level. And so I think it's also all of us thinking about what have we done research on and how might we mobilize knowledge of those kinds of infrastructures that we know as researchers and then get inside of them and change them? Speaker1: [00:40:45] Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's amazing, that project, and it's really great to hear about it. I, you know, I think that anthropology is so mutable and that's one of its strengths. Is it itself? Adapts across the world to different researchers in different communities, and I think it's a really flexible skill set. We should make the most of them. Maybe all the human sciences have that, but I mean, I think I think because we force ourselves to kind of dislocate ourselves from our what's our routines and our settlements are and to go abroad, metaphorically speaking, at least we ought to be able to deal with this. And and you know, I think that the thing is, I think that the number of people who care about this is growing. I think it's growing more slowly than it needs to. But but there are it won't be like we're alone in this, you know what I mean? I think it's not. We can find community in this, at least. I think, especially after Harvey here. There are new political communities that are organizing around this that bring into juxtaposition, maybe people who didn't think they would have anything in common beforehand. Speaker4: [00:41:48] I want to say that's great, but it's a terrible it's a terrible circumstance to have to have happen to bring those people together politically. Speaker1: [00:41:55] And that's the sad thing is it's almost as though it takes that again. You know, I when we were talking to Benedict Ellingson, who's an Icelandic filmmaker, just made this amazing movie woman at war, which you have to see. It's incredible about a one woman who starts destroying Iceland's electricity infrastructure herself, right? As a way of dealing with climate change. It's a really powerful movie, and it's sponging up a lot of awards. I wouldn't be surprised if it won an Academy Award, too. It's really good. But he was saying because this was before he was working on that project, he said, You know, you know, has there ever been a time in human history where something of a kind of extinction level threat has come to pass and people have actually organized around it in time to deal with it? And the only one anyone can ever think of is fascism, like in the 30s and 40s, right? And of course, it's military. You know, it's not clear that we actually got rid of fascism. You know, it seems to Speaker2: [00:42:47] Well, we we Speaker3: [00:42:49] We didn't really have a nuclear holocaust either. Speaker4: [00:42:51] That's what I was going to say that there's something about organizing in the late 1970s, early 1980s around nuclear weapons that also mobilized a huge swath of the Speaker3: [00:43:02] Population because we grew up in a time of nuclear terror. Yeah, right. I mean that you were just sort of waiting for that to happen, right? And movies about Speaker4: [00:43:12] Major. We all the same age. Speaker3: [00:43:13] Yeah, we're all 32. Speaker4: [00:43:14] Yeah, exactly. So when we were Speaker2: [00:43:18] 25, he's he's Speaker3: [00:43:21] The youngster among us Speaker4: [00:43:22] When we were babies, then. Yeah, right. There was the day after tomorrow that everybody saw when they were in elementary school and it really did transform. Oh God, the way that you thought about that. Speaker2: [00:43:33] What did you hear about this Speaker1: [00:43:34] Story that Reagan watched that film and it actually convinced him, apparently to dial back the rhetoric all of the time? I mean, I've heard that and I've heard that. I think from a source, I believe that that and again, it speaks to the power of cultural production. The narrative that movie was so. And again, you watch it today. It's still pretty chilling because I sometimes teach that on my energy class, just excerpts from it. It's and it goes on like the nuclear bomb sequence. I don't remember, but they go on and on and on and vaporization and fire clouds and and so I think at the end of that, you know, Reagan, who probably knows his way around a film, you know, set and so forth, which is like, OK, that's it, either. Either he realized that he wasn't going to be able to keep his jingoistic nuclear rhetoric or, you know, he maybe he as himself was moved by it and said, You know, now I understand the fear. Speaker4: [00:44:20] One of the other things that I remember from then is, I don't I don't know if you all had this where you lived. But the organization Sane, which was an anti-nuclear organization that we certainly had in Atlanta, Georgia, they had a thing they did where they put a baby in a trash can. Speaker3: [00:44:36] A baby, A, B, Speaker4: [00:44:37] B Speaker3: [00:44:38] B would be like a B.B. gun B. Yes. Speaker4: [00:44:40] So A B B one, b b. And so imagine it sort of bangs around. And then they put two and then they put three and then more and more and more and more. And I remember being maybe 13 years old, and that's striking me as this incredible metaphor for what happens when nuclear proliferation. And it really galvanizing my action as a kid. And so I think there are also these kinds of engagements that you can have with audiences that stick with them in these important ways. And I guess I've also been thinking about that in terms of what we all do. You know, we spend a lot of time traveling around to talk to academic audiences, and that's amazing. It's wonderful. It's wonderful to see friends and wonderful to meet new colleagues. But thinking about doing more public speaking and more public events where we talk about these things in a way that is at a register that people who are not anthropologists can attend to and can connect with. But for a much broader audience and I spent most of last year trying to do that, and it was it was interesting and fun, and it's hard. It's really hard. Speaker1: [00:45:48] So what were your themes? And I mean, what how were you approaching that? Speaker4: [00:45:52] So I did this Phi Beta Kappa thing that was five. Kappa asked 15 people to go around the country and talk to broad audiences about their research, and so I went to eight different places and some of the people in the audience were university students, but undergraduates and then many people in the audience were just community members, people that are connected to the college in some way, as alumni are a lot of retirees that live in the neighborhood. And I talked about, I talked about some of my work in Papua New Guinea around conservation, development and racism and made the links for people between the sorts of rhetorics around racial difference and racial lack and the kinds of conservation issues that we have in New Guinea and so talked about, talked about that book, talked about dispossession in the environment, but did it in a way that, you know, a 90 year old woman in Oklahoma and a 17 year old college student in Oklahoma could both connect to. And that's what was challenging, writing for a broad enough audience for, you know, for for them to understand it, but also writing in a way that you maintain a kind of theoretical and conceptual architecture to your talk, but not in a way that edits out people being able to understand it. Speaker3: [00:47:12] So how did you know if you had hit it right or not? Like, how did you know if they were getting the 17 year old and the 90 year old? Speaker4: [00:47:18] I tried to clock it by the questions, you know, and I think the first couple of ones were less successful than the last couple of ones. The most successful one was the last one, which was in Oklahoma, and it was at the University of Tulsa. Ok? And you know, that's that's a big oil and gas town that is that is a place where a lot of the people that are associated with that institution, the alarm work in the industry and a lot of the retirees in the neighborhood worked in the industry. And I feel like the questions I got at the end of that one, because that one, I also talked about fossil fuel extraction and deforestation, all of that. I feel like those questions showed me that I had. I had to hit the right, the right note. Speaker3: [00:48:01] Mm hmm. I want to go back to this. We were explaining the same group, which I don't I don't remember that group, but maybe I've just forgotten. But this brilliant idea of putting the Bebe's in the metal trash can and running around, and you remember it so many years later. And that just shows, I mean, that's almost like an art, almost like a performance piece in a way. And I think it really shows you the power of just do like those little material effects or the kind of event of it and how well it stuck with you. And I think we need to do more of those things, right? And so the public talks are another way to reach people, but also these kind of almost artistic artistic politics. Ok, so even though it's completely nerdy Ted talk, right? I mean, I think people watch those like they do. People watch those. I know they're kind of dorky and I've seen a lot of bad ones, but they're not a bad way to get the message out. Speaker1: [00:49:01] There's this Ted X thing. You can basically organize your own TED talk like almost every university is in this network, I'm Speaker3: [00:49:07] Sure, but I don't. Do people watch those as much? I don't know. Maybe I'm not sure. Speaker1: [00:49:11] Sometimes people are using them to kind of promo ideas or to brand themselves, which is fine, but I don't think that's necessarily what we have in mind. But you could easily do a kind of TED event where you had several people you thought really had interesting things to say. And then it's just a matter of getting it out there and YouTube and other media and just seeing seeing what resonates. And unfortunately, you know, part of grabbing attention these days means, you know, there's a lot of techniques. Not all of them would befit our habits as academics, but Speaker4: [00:49:40] I'm cynical about TED talks for reasons that don't have anything to do with anything except that I watched one that irritated Speaker2: [00:49:47] Me so much. I believe it. Well, they're very like techno science. Yeah, they're Speaker3: [00:49:52] They're they are annoying. Yeah, some of them. Speaker4: [00:49:54] And I won't. It's a very well known professor who strides onto stage, and he basically, with this great flourish, informs you that there has been a disconnection between the natural world and the cultural world, and that that is a function of enlightenment thinking, Oh. And it seems as if that's the first time anybody and he's speaking like that and people can't see me, but I'm mocking the sort of TED talk aesthetic here. Yeah, but that bothered me so much that I'm cynical about them. But I think that you're right. I think there is something about that kind of public forum that actually does connect with people Speaker3: [00:50:36] Like in, I think, in the popular world and the world, let's say, in the United States at least and maybe Europe as well. There it has a certain amount of legitimacy, whether earned or not. And it's the short form that people, I think, look for and digest like, I think a lot of students go out there and look at these things and. Are folks at home? I don't know, I'm not saying I want to run out and do them, but it does seem like a format that would be passable. Speaker4: [00:51:02] I wonder if there's a kind of compromise, though. So, you know, there's in New York, and I'm sure that you have them here. I'm sure people have them all over the world, these kind of new spaces for public events. So there are ton in Brooklyn. There's one that I did an event at two weeks ago called ADIO, which is a design lab for new urban structures, new urban thinking. And they do a series. And I was there for one on tourism. And it seems like spaces like that that curate these events for interested people and invite people from New York and people from all over to come to them. It seems like connecting with one of those spaces and curating a series of events for them would be a good way to kind of act locally and think locally and think about building local connections, but at the same time reaching this broader audience that we're we're talking about. And so the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about connecting with some of those places in Brooklyn to see if I could do that and pull some other anthropologists in. Speaker3: [00:52:02] Well, I remember our mutual friend, Audra Simpson, talking about these kind of it's like they would have these sort of smart talks at bars, and she was going to some of those like she had been to a few of them and people are just hanging out and they're drinking their beer or whatever. And then but then they have someone like Audra come and talk about their research for like half an hour. Speaker2: [00:52:21] You know, we've done that nerd night thing. Speaker3: [00:52:22] We did the nerd night and that was similar. And I think some places like New York, you're going to have more audience for that. Speaker4: [00:52:28] And so raising the bar is what she was talking Speaker3: [00:52:30] About, raising the bar that's Speaker4: [00:52:32] Raising the bar to getting started by jazz students from Columbia, basically. And so jazz is general studies. It's the nontraditional students. And they were sitting around one day talking about how they wanted their friends to be able to sit in on their classes. And so they reached out to, I think the first year they did it, they reached out to about 50 faculty on our campus and said, Hey, do you want to have some drinks and talk about your research and everybody who did it? Jason and I both did it. Oh, you did. We loved it. So much fun. And then they took it. They took it international, and so they had them all over the world the next couple of years. And I don't know what's happened with them, but that's a great example. A great Speaker3: [00:53:07] Example. Yeah, yeah. Andre mentioned that like a few years ago, and it really stuck with me and we did do that. There is this thing. Is it just in Texas, the nerd night thing? Or is that Speaker2: [00:53:18] An educational Speaker1: [00:53:19] Thing? Yeah. I mean, I think the one in Austin is an old one, and they got like 200 people out Speaker2: [00:53:23] Night, which it was Speaker3: [00:53:24] Like two hundred people and it was Speaker2: [00:53:26] A really didn't Speaker1: [00:53:26] Have a lot of big public event spaces. Speaker3: [00:53:28] Yeah, intellectuals to get people out of their houses and into a space is kind of amazing, and beer seems to be part of the lure. But that works because it makes for like a pretty kind of cool audience to hang out with. Right? And it's like a little bit funny and a little bit smart. And you know, you can sort of play with the audience in the Q&A. So it's really a lot of fun. And I guess that raising the bar, they also recorded and put it online because that would be good to do too, so that people who weren't there can see it. Speaker4: [00:53:56] Yeah. Yeah, I think they did. Speaker1: [00:53:58] Yeah, the thing that that kind of not animates me, but just an idea that I have that I wonder what you think about is I think a lot of our ideas are tailored to our own lifestyle in the sense that we are kind of urban or more than urban elites who, you know, move around a lot. And I'm wondering, what could we do to actually connect with people who are in these rural areas that are often like feeling the brunt of some of these, the kinds of effects of neoliberalism and even climate change? And is there a way you could create a kind of mobile performative event that might find ways of connecting? And I don't know how to do it right. I don't know what would work and what wouldn't, but it seems like kind of taking that out on the road is important to because there's so many places where I feel people are and you get this from like you Speaker2: [00:54:47] Get on the bike. Katharine Hayhoe, Speaker1: [00:54:48] Not just Katharine Hayhoe, spoke with evangelical churches, but the one who is doing work in Louisiana. I'm on the sociologist Speaker2: [00:54:54] Who, oh, hush hush child. Yeah, right, Charlie? Speaker1: [00:54:58] Arlie Russell Hochschild, right? So, you know, and she was connecting to these people who I think and a lot of ways, you know, they have community, but a lot of their vision of the world is is kind of Fox News basically driven. And that's a real problem. I mean, this is somehow to connect, and I don't think it's going to happen by waiting for them to change. It's like we're going to have to reach out and figure out a way to bring this out. In a way we can actually start a dialogue. You have to talk to a couple of church groups through the kind of climate change stuff. And, you know, I'm sure that there's a diversity of political opinion, but people are just gratified if somebody takes the time to talk. You know, sometimes and just come in and talk and answer questions and to do it in a non-confrontational way, just like this is what I know. This is what I've done, and I wonder if that's something that could potentially work, you know, as just a kind of more humble approach to this. Just, I'm just coming out, just going to talk and, you know, maybe working through faith communities, maybe working through other kinds of communities, but just getting to places that aren't going to get. Rice or Columbia experience otherwise, you know, how do we do that? Speaker4: [00:56:00] I mean, I think that's one of the big questions, right? Because the audiences that we're talking about in, you know, urban Houston are in New York City, our audiences that are probably already pretty well informed and pretty much on board politically with the things that we're interested in. I think that question of how you reach people in Beaver Dale, Georgia, is the big question is that where you grew up? That's not where I grew up, but it's where my family's from. And you know, a long, long time ago, Margaret Mead went to Beaver Dale and she spoke at the community college, and one of my aunts went and it changed her life. Wow. She radically transformed her life because of that talk. And I think that that ability to go to places that are what we think of as off the beaten path, but they are well and truly, you know, to go back to what you said earlier about the Senate. They are well and truly the populations that are electing the senators that have the power to do things like confirm that person that was just confirmed to the Supreme Court. I think that connecting with those people is crucial, but I think the question is, how do we do it? I mean, faith communities is one way, but are there other venues that we, as scholars could think about working in? Speaker1: [00:57:11] And then I mean, I was just going to say, I think you've nailed it. Community colleges is a great idea because you have a community of learners already there. They probably don't have the resources to bring people out to give talks all the time. So if you were to say I will just come and give a talk and you know, people want to come and listen, Speaker3: [00:57:28] You could pay your own way and just go do it. Speaker1: [00:57:30] Yeah, but I mean, that would be a great project would be just to get a network of people to say, we all commit to give a talk on climate change at 10 different community colleges. Speaker2: [00:57:38] So let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker4: [00:57:40] Come up with the challenge. And I mean, I think one of the things that we should also do is think about, OK, who that funds. Things actually cares about this and cares about anthropology in this way. And I'm thinking about talking to wintergreen. I'm thinking about talking to these other institutions that already pay for us to do amazing research and pay for us to disseminate that research. And so this is another form of dissemination of knowledge. Speaker1: [00:58:05] Yeah, I like I think we should go with this idea. Speaker2: [00:58:07] I'm serious. Yeah, I know Speaker3: [00:58:08] I am, too. And you could each of them could be videotaped or the best one, I guess you could post online, right? If you give the same talk ten times over, get the best iteration of it, the Tulsa iteration of it, and then post that so that it can even live beyond that encounter at the community college, which I have a few hundred people. Maybe which would be great, but it'd be nice to have it accessible. Yeah, out to the world, too. Speaker4: [00:58:33] I mean, I think one of the other things to think about is there are an awful lot of anthropologists that are not from urban centers. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of us that end up in these urban centers. But we have we have long family networks back in place, and a lot of people don't go home very often because of the difference between their politics and the politics at home. And I think encouraging all of us to actually step back and say, OK, how can I go back to where I'm from and do some of this work? You know, and not always expecting the people that are in the places that you're from to to bear that burden. Speaker3: [00:59:07] Right, right, right. Right. Yeah, that's a very good point. Speaker4: [00:59:10] I say that, but I never go to Georgia, so maybe that's what I should commit to. Speaker1: [00:59:14] But I mean, again, like, I think if it were, try to hit, you know, 10 community colleges in the next 10 years in Georgia and try to give a talk at each. I think you're right. I think there's a chance because people there may just not have ever had the chance to have that encounter with somebody who really can answer questions and who can talk to them about their own research. I just I mean, I don't know that much about community college life, but I know I've had people in my family who've taken like, you know, adult education courses, and it feels like they're pretty kind of bare-bones operations and a lot of cases. So I think it's Speaker3: [00:59:45] A really good 10 and 10 years is to slow down. Speaker2: [00:59:47] No, no, no. I'm just saying Speaker3: [00:59:48] It needs to be more like three a year. Speaker2: [00:59:51] It's too much pressure. You know what I mean? Speaker1: [00:59:54] You now at the risk of not that's well, Speaker3: [00:59:56] You're doing it. It's not just pages that's doing. Speaker2: [00:59:58] I'm doing 10. Speaker1: [00:59:59] Yeah, I'm doing well, do as many is as well. Speaker4: [01:00:01] Everybody, everybody, everybody listening is doing 10, obviously. Speaker1: [01:00:05] All right. Let's let's take a peck. But I really think it's a good idea to get somebody like Vinograd to put some money behind it. Speaker3: [01:00:10] Just yeah, that'd be that'd be ideal. Speaker1: [01:00:12] Also, maybe then, Speaker3: [01:00:13] Especially for people at institutions where you don't have the resources to be able to fly to Georgia or wherever. Speaker4: [01:00:19] Right? I mean, so maybe a two pronged strategy. Maybe we encourage people to talk to their own institutions and say, Hey, I want to do these talks and I want to get credit for them. So I don't want you to just value the talk. If you go to, say, the University of Chicago or to Stanford or to Yale. I want you to value the talk when you're thinking about my tenure and promotion, if I go to these other places and I want you to pay for it. And part of a kind of service to the world. Speaker3: [01:00:45] Right, right. Speaker4: [01:00:46] And then we also, you know, maybe speak to wintergreen and others. Yeah, because that might actually generate some capital for people to be able to do this because I think it's one thing for the. Three of us to say, you know, commit to do it because we can pay for it, but people in more precarious positions who might want to do it might not be able to. Speaker1: [01:01:03] Yeah, right, right. And if you set up a standard that a peer institution then would be shamed by not living up to. Exactly. That's a good thing to do. Now that would be a high note to end on, but I have one more question to ask you to. In the failing light of the early evening on a Thursday in Houston, Speaker2: [01:01:18] The remains of the. Speaker1: [01:01:20] But maybe this is a nice way because we've been talking about a lot of serious stuff because there is a lot of serious stuff happening. What brings you Joy Page West? Where do you find solace? Speaker4: [01:01:29] What brings me joy? Speaker1: [01:01:31] And you could you could talk about punk music if you want because you had said you had some information. Speaker4: [01:01:35] For us, it's not punk music, but the last time that we spent time together, we all wondered whether the election of the person who's currently president of the United States Speaker2: [01:01:44] Allegedly Speaker4: [01:01:45] Allegedly that we wondered if that person's election was going to generate a new kind of punk scene. And we were all that was our silver lining. I'm not sure that that's happened, but I know that one thing that has happened is it has generated or it's been part of what has generated this incredible indigenous hip hop sing. Yes. And so I want to just maybe end. The thing that has brought me joy this past week is a colleague at Columbia, Erin Fox, who's in ethnomusicology, brought a group called Snotty Nose Rez Kids. And I want everybody listening to go and listen to snotty nose, rest kids and listen to all of their music. But one song in particular, the Warriors, is absolutely stunning. And you know, these guys came and they gave a talk and did some some free form stuff at school a couple of days ago. And they're they're really in-your-face about the fact that this is not music for white folks. This is music for their community, about their community and for their community. But that if people like me take something away from it, then that's great. And I was blown away by them, and I was blown away by the power of their lyrics and by the incredible, incredible desire to transform structures. It was just wonderful so that that is bringing me joy this week. Speaker2: [01:03:13] Hmm. Speaker1: [01:03:14] That's good. That's really. Do you think that be OK with us using like fifteen seconds to put in the intro or the outro? Speaker4: [01:03:20] I have no idea. You could tweet to him and find out. Speaker1: [01:03:22] Ok, well, we'll see if they're up for it, because I think that could be a nice way to end things too. What about you, Simone? Anything bringing you joy and solace? Speaker3: [01:03:31] Mine's not nearly as interesting, but I'll share it anyway. Speaker2: [01:03:34] About your dog. Speaker3: [01:03:35] Yeah, no. I mean, my my best joy is a red couch and an 80 pound child and a 10 pound dog and snuggle mode. That's my joy. That's true. Joy both at once is the best, but even one at a time is pretty good, right? Speaker2: [01:03:55] How about you? How about you? Part of that? How about you? I don't know. Speaker3: [01:03:57] Well, they're kind of you're sort of at the foot somewhere. Speaker2: [01:04:01] It's OK. You can have joy with. I understand how that goes. It goes. Speaker1: [01:04:06] Do you have any rituals like that page that when you're having these moments, as we have had, so many of them have just like feeling like worn out despondent. Is there something you do for yourself to kind of come back? Speaker4: [01:04:18] Yeah, there there are things. You know, this is not going to be a joyful note. But speaking of your dog, for many years, we had a cat named Swizzle who was a superhero was also bionic, which is a whole nother story for a different podcast. Speaker1: [01:04:32] But bionic cat? Speaker2: [01:04:35] Yeah. Speaker4: [01:04:36] But when I when I was really not OK, this was when I would put on Michael Franti. I would put it on, but swizzle would request it and we would dance to Michael Franti. That's good. Yeah, but you know, now sadly, swizzle passed away. One of the things that I've been trying to do lately is to when I am not feeling OK to get outside and run. Yes, and to really, you know, I live right in between Riverside Park and Central Park and even in those urban spaces, the kind of natural the wonder of the natural world, you know? And at six o'clock in the morning, seeing a great blue heron in the park is breathtaking and just soul cleansing. Speaker1: [01:05:14] Yeah. I notice you've posted some very inspirational jogging things on Facebook, which I've appreciated. Speaker3: [01:05:21] Well, maybe when we emerge out of the studio in just a few minutes, we can find ourselves an owl at on Rice's campus. Speaker1: [01:05:28] They're probably coming Speaker2: [01:05:29] Out. I make Speaker3: [01:05:29] No promises, but they are rumored to be Speaker4: [01:05:33] Here. I want to know Speaker2: [01:05:34] Many different species. Speaker4: [01:05:35] Those people I have been promised an owl. Speaker2: [01:05:38] Yeah, I will. You shall have. Speaker3: [01:05:41] Well, maybe not a bionic owl, but maybe a cute little baby owl. That could Speaker2: [01:05:45] Be nice. Speaker1: [01:05:45] Ok, well, thank you for coming in and helping us process the contemporary. As always, you're our chief correspondent on the contemporary. Speaker4: [01:05:52] Well, thank you very much. This is always really fun and. It's lovely to see you both.